Badgley Mischka Founders Buy Back Brand

New company hopes to “get back into jewelry”

Iconix Brand Group has sold the intellectual property to the Badgley Mischka brand to a group that includes the brand’s original founders.

Buyers include cofounders Mark Badgley and James Mischka, footwear company and brand licensee Titan Industries, and MJCLK, an apparel licensee partially owned by the cofounders. The sale price: $16 million in cash.

The luxury brand has produced jewelry, and Badgley told WWD that one of the new company’s goals is to “get back into jewelry.”

Iconix, which owns a portfolio of brands, acquired the Badgley Mischka intellectual property in 2004. But it has since decided that “the time and resources required to properly support it are not in line with the rest of the Iconix portfolio,” a statement said.

“We felt that it was in the best interest…to allocate our resources to our larger volume, higher margin brands,” said Iconix chairman and CEO Peter Cuneo in a statement.

“We are excited to manage our core product categories in-house and focus on the luxury aspect in both product and image,” said Badgley in the statement.